Of the Sentiment of Sorrow and Contrition for Our Sins, Which We Should Gather from the Meditation on the Passion of Christ Our Lord

THE second sentiment in which we should exercise ourselves, and strive to gather it from meditation on the Lord’s Passion, is sorrow and contrition for ours sins. This is one of the most proper fruits that we can gather therefrom, clearly showing us the gravity and malice of sin. By considering the remedy our eyes are opened and we come to see the grave nature of the malady. “O man,” says St. Bernard, “know and understand the severity of the wound that needed so costly an appliance for its cure.” There is nothing that sets off the gravity of sin—though there comes in here the consideration of the hell that is due to it for ever and ever—so much as the need there was of God’s becoming man to pay the debt of so great an evil. In no other way could that debt be paid or satisfaction made in rigor of strict justice, with no infringement or abatement of the justice of God. Since the offense was in a certain manner infinite, as being committed against an infinite God, and no mere man could satisfy for it, by reason of the great distance there is between God and mere man, it was necessary that he who was to make satisfaction should be a person of infinite dignity, equal to Him who had been injured and offended, and as good as He.

Theologians explain this by a comparison. If a shepherd or laborer, a common man and one of low degree, should give blows with a cudgel or with his fist to the king, it is clear that the king would not be satisfied with having other such blows of cudgel or fist given to the shepherd, not even if they gave him two hundred lashes, or even drowned him, for the vast difference of rank there is between a blow or insult offered to the king and the striking or putting to death of a shepherd. How, then, could that king get satisfaction? Do you know how? If the offender were or were made a king as great as he, and then offered him satisfaction, with that the king would be satisfied. Now so it is in this case. Vile man, base and insignificant creature, dust and ashes, had offended and insulted the King of Heaven and Glory; he had, as we have said, struck God with his fist; for that is what a man does, so far as in him lies, when he commits a mortal sin. It would be no atonement for such an insult, though that base and vile creature were to die for it. How, then, shall atonement be made? If this man were God, equal to Him to Whom the insult has been offered, atonement would be made for the insult by the suffering of such a man. But what remedy is that, seeing that there is no other God, there being no more than one sole true God? Here came in the infinite mercy of God, and the marvelous invention and contrivance that He found, to be able to pardon man without prejudice to His own justice. Being Himself the person offended, and there being no other God that could make satisfaction, God became man that so man might suffer and die, since man it was that had offended and insulted God. That offense and fault having been in a manner infinite, it was requisite that the suffering offered in atonement for it should be of infinite value, which it could only be on condition that the sufferer himself should be God. The works of such a sufferer would be of infinite value, as being the works of an infinite God. Such was the necessity of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ. It well sets out the gravity and malice of sin. So St. John Damascene says that, if for sin God had cast into hell for ever and ever the whole multitude of men that the world has held and shall hold till it comes to an end, divine justice would not have been satisfied and paid as it has been by God’s becoming man and dying. This is no hyperbole, no exaggeration, but quite plain truth. All hell and all torments that could be endured there are not a payment equal to the life and death of Christ. By that, as He was God Who made the payment, justice was entirely satisfied to the extent of the whole debt, and even more. But in hell atonement could never be complete for one single [mortal] sin.

According to this I say that one of the chief fruits that we should gather from meditation on the Passion should be greatly to bewail and abhor our sins, that have cost Jesus Christ so much. My sins, O Lord, have been the cause of these thorns and scourges; I, Lord, have imposed these labors on Thee. This Cross, O Lord, is what I deserved; it is I that should have been spat upon, scourged, and mocked. St. Bernard gives a consideration very pat to our purpose here. I was playing in the square with my companions, and there in the privy council chamber of the king sentence of death was passed upon me. The king’s only son, hearing this, took the crown off his head, stripped himself of his royal robes, put on sackcloth, covered his head with ashes, and went barefoot, weeping and lamenting that they had condemned to death his servant. Of a sudden I saw him coming out into the street in this guise. I asked the reason, and was told that he was going to die in my stead. What would be the right thing to do in such a case? Who would be so giddy, so ill-mannered, as to go back to his game, and not at least join the prince’s company and weep along with him? In this way, then, with these and like reflections we should occupy ourselves in prayer, weeping and grieving for our sins, which have been the cause of the Passion of Christ. So our Father in the Book of Spiritual Exercises, coming to the exercises on the Passion, puts this for the thing to ask for: “Grief and deep feeling of confusion for that on account of my sins Christ has suffered so much.” The thing that our Father bids us to ask for in the prelude to any exercise always represents the fruit which he wishes us to gather from thence.

This exercise of sorrow for sin is much recommended to us by the saints. They would not have us forget it, but use it and practise it much, beginners as well as proficients, for the great advantages that it carries. The first advantage is that such an exercise goes far to preserve us in humility and fear of God. One of the strongest and most efficacious motives that we can apply to keep us ever in humility and self-abasement is the consideration of our sins and heartfelt sorrow for them. A man who has offended His Creator and Lord, and so has deserved to be in hell for ever and ever, what ignominies, what insults, what contempt will he not take in good part, as compensation and satisfaction for the offenses that he has committed against the majesty of God!

Secondly, this is an exercise that carries with it a great assurance of pardon. One of the reflections that go furthest to satisfy a man that God has forgiven his sins, is his having great sorrow and repentance for them. If you keep your sins before your eyes, moving yourself to sorrow and shame for them, God will not look at them, but forget them. That is why the saints kept up such a remembrance of their sins and had them ever before their eyes (for I know mine iniquity, and my sin is always before me), that so God may forget them and remove His eyes from them. Turn away thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities (Psalm 1. 11). So St. Jerome on those words observes: “If you keep your sin before you, God will not keep it before Him.” There is nothing that so turns away God’s eyes from our sins as our keeping our own eyes on them and entering into sentiments of shame and confusion for them. This is one of the things that will give us the greatest sense of security and satisfaction at the hour of death, and to that end we should have it well prepared beforehand.

In the third place, this is not only a remedy for past sins, but a good preservative medicine to keep us from falling into sin in future. Anyone who is continually blushing and grieving for having offended God is very far from being likely to sin anew.

Fourthly, it is a powerful means to console and assure us that we have given no consent under the temptations and scruples that trouble us. He who goes on making acts of contrition, greatly abhorring sin, and firmly purposing to die rather than commit a mortal sin, may be sure that he has not given any consent under the temptations and scruples that come to him. A man does not consent so easily to what he so greatly abhors. Moreover, to persevere in this practice is to persevere in the practice of love of God, since true contrition takes its rise from love of God, it being a sorrow for having offended a Lord so good and so worthy of our love and service. The more one knows and loves God, the more one grieves for having offended Him. St. Clement relates of the glorious Apostle St. Peter that at the recollection of his having denied Christ he wept so much that the tears burned his face and made furrows down his cheeks. At the first cockcrow he arose every night to prayer, and slept no more all that night; and this custom he kept up all his life. That is what we should imitate. One of the most profitable exercises that we can practise in meditation and out of meditation is to make acts of contrition, of utter abhorrence of sin, of firm purpose to lose a thousand lives rather than commit one mortal sin, and earnestly beseeching the Lord to take us away rather than permit such a thing. Never permit me, O Lord, to be separated from Thee! What do I want with life, O Lord, but to serve Thee! If I am not to serve Thee, I have no use for it; take me away, O Lord, ere ever I offend Thee!